On Sun, 2008-07-13 at 18:04 +1000, Gregory Storer wrote: > I just wanted to tell you about my 80 year old dad and computers. He's > never used one (Although he tells me he did two years of typing, the > nuns thought it important that he knew) > > Dad is mostly blind, and the thing he misses the most is newspapers. > He's an avid follower of news, and misses the indepth articles. > > Using Ubuntu, an old modem and Orca Screen reader, I've set it up for > him to read the Age Online - text version. > > http://www.theage.com.au/text > > It works quite well > > Knowing he wouldn't be able to handle a mouse, I used the configuration > editor to map the Control keys to firstly dial the modem (control + 1) > and then open firefox (control + 2) (had all sorts of problems with > firefox always starting 'offline') I set the sticky keys to allow him > to press the control button and let it go, then press 1 and let it go. > (I put some raised felt number stickers on the keys for him - from a > craft shop) I also slowed down the key rate so he wouldn't open multiple > browsers. > > Somewhere along the way I set Firefox to allow a cursor to scroll > through a web page. > > I increased the zoom level of the browser, to what I assume is maximum > and 3 or 4 words appear on each line. Orca then reads those words and > he using the down arrow to scroll through The Age index, he can hear the > words and which helps him work out what's on the screen, he then presses > enter to go the article, and follows the same procedure to read the > article the back space to get back to the index. > > He handled it pretty well. With a bit of practise he'll do fine. > > He shuts the computer off by simply pressing the power button. I set > Firefox so that it wouldn't ask if he wanted to restart a crashed > session. > > Now that he seems happy with it all, I'll talk to him about an ADSL > connection, although the dial up works fine with the text version of The > Age. I also just used an old computer lying around at home and an old > CRT. I'm hoping that I can get the site up on his huge Plasma screen > and a wireless keyboard so he can really see the words. > > I wasn't able to work out how to start Firefox already on full screen > (it appears you have to start it then press F11) and I haven't yet > worked out how to get Firefox to 'jump' to the next headline using > keyboard combinations. I thought I'd try some other browsers to see if > any of the others worked in a better way. > > Any suggestion on how to make this an even better experience for him > would be most welcomed!
Great story. Here I was thinkin that my 60ish mother in law was doing well with the tux. For fullscreen firefox you might want to look at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1568 Cheers Dave -- ubuntu-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
